Villagers used to pick up bread, carrots or potatoes tossed to them by players. This could be used to encourage breeding. Tried all 3 items on butcher and shepherd villagers and no items were picked up by villagers.
I originally had mobGriefing set to false, but observed the same non-pick up behavior after setting it to true. I did not restart the server yet, so I don't know if that would make a difference.
Not sure if these details matter:
these are "cured" villagers from zombies. Haven't tried it with original, non-cured villagers.
gamemode is survival, but I only tried this with an OP'd login, but in survival mode.
non-pickup happens before and after first trades.
I searched for Villager-related bugs, but didn't see this one listed.
Environment
Client: Windows 7, Java 1.8.0_40 64 bit.
Server: Linux 2.6.32-042stab105.14 #1 SMP Fri Mar 13 20:06:37 MSK 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
java version "1.8.0_05"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_05-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.5-b02, mixed mode)
did restarting the server help? I'm running into the same issue